The present invention relates to a tractor-mounted loader and more particularly relates to structure for attaching or detaching the masts of a front-mounted loader to or from the tractor.
Designers have spent a lot of effort trying to come up with designs which permit a loader to be easily attached to, or detached from, a tractor. As considered when mounted on a tractor, these loaders typically include a pair of spaced apart, upright masts or standards respectively having lower ends coupled to frame members extending outwardly from the tractor frame. The rear ends of a pair of loader arms are pivotally attached to upper ends of the masts and a pair of boom cylinders are coupled between the masts and the arms for raising and lowering the arms relative to the tractor. A u-shaped brace structure has a pair of legs respectively rigidly attached to the masts at locations below the upper ends thereof and joined together by a transverse bight portion extending ahead of and releasably coupled to a forward end of the tractor. It is the connections between the bottom ends of the masts and the tractor-mounted frame members and between the bight portion of the brace and the front end of the tractor that designers have been trying to simplify. However, attachment of the masts to framework carried by the tractor often involves one or more of bolts, pins, rotatable latches or wedges. These parts often require tools for their installation and/or adjustment so that they properly effect a reliable connection
U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,233 granted to Meyer et al on 19 Jan. 1988, U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,764 granted to Hamm on 27 Dec. 1988 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,737 granted to Rae et al on 26 June 1990 exemplify the prior art.